host: how does social security factor into this fiscal cliff negotiation process? guest: the republicans put together a plan in the last few weeks to change the way the annual cost of living adjustment is calculated for social security beneficiaries. it is the annual increase in benefits that people get in their monthly payments, it is usually annual, this coming year for instance, next month in january they are scheduled to get a 1.7% increase in benefits. that is based on a government measure of inflation. for social security they use the consumer price index. there is a new measure of inflation that the government has been considering for a while. on average, it is a little bit lower. it reflects a lower level of inflation than what the government has been using up until now. on average they tell us that the kola would be about .03% less. last year the increase was 3.6%. that's the biggest effective of adopting this new measure of inflation that the republicans put on the table. the reason why we're focusing on this and a lot of groups have been focusing on this